Announcement: New England User Group Meetup

by Rick Cabral on November 15, 2011

Title: Proxies and Clones in Sitecore
Speaker: Dan Solavoy of Grand Circle Travel
When: 6:00pm EST
Where: The meetup will be held at ISITE Design’s offices, which are near the Kendall Square T stop.

To RSVP and for full meetup details, please visit our Meetup page:
http://www.meetup.com/Sitecore-User-Group-New-England/

Within Sitecore, Proxies are a mechanism for representing content from one location within another branch of the Content Tree. The technology is fairly old, and has its limits, but also its uses. Cloning is a relatively new Sitecore feature that essentially exposes the concept of value inheritance (with override) between copies of a given content Item. Dan and his team at Grand Circle have implemented both solutions.

If you’re in the Boston area, hope to see you there!

 

 

 

 

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Sitecore Wisdom logoThere’s a lot of smart thinking and doing out in the Sitecore ecosystem. We want to tap into that knowledge and share your best lessons with others working in Sitecore.

Take two minutes to answer two questions in our Sitecore Wisdom Report survey. We’ll compile the answers –all your lessons learned, advice, best practice tips, developer tricks, organizational stories, etc. — and publish them in a few weeks in the Sitecore Wisdom Report.

You’ll automatically be entered to win an iPad (we’ll choose the name of one lucky winner who takes the survey) and we’ll send you a copy of the report when it publishes.

You don’t need to be a wordsmith, or long-winded. Short and snappy answers are as great as long and verbose answers. (And, you can share your wisdom anonymously, or give your name/company/website affiliation for publication — your choice.)  Submit your wisdom here.

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Getting Workflow Working

by Rick Cabral on May 9, 2011

As a solutions architect, I have had the opportunity to review a diverse set of Sitecore installations authored by folks all over the United States. One common source of implementer and administrator consternation involves successfully implementing Sitecore’s Workflow feature. Unfortunately, the name “workflow” is charged with dozens of subtle expectations. Implementation is further complicated by the fact that Sitecore does not explicitly train developers on the use of the Workflow feature. It’s an exercise “left to the reader”. These are unfortunate circumstances; at its heart Sitecore’s Workflow system is very simple, and requires minimal setup for success. In this post, I’m going to cover the rules of thumb to get a sustainable Workflow implementation running on Sitecore.

Know the correct use for Sitecore Workflow

At its heart, the Workflow feature’s sole purpose is to flag a given version of a content item as being finalized, ergo: approved for publication. Workflow design should be anchored around this fact. Workflow should have one (and only one) “Workflow State” marked “Final”. This “final” workflow state should be the last workflow state for a given workflow. Many developers try to “disable” workflow by marking all states as final, or introduce a “final” workflow state at the beginning of workflow for a “publish-then-approve” effect. Both implementations have consequences that confuse the user and clog up the content database. 

Aside from the obvious reasons for ending Workflow in a single, final state, there’s an architectural assumption in Sitecore that cannot be ignored. The “final” workflow state signals Sitecore that an Item version is no longer available for editing. If a user attempts to edit an Item Version that is in a workflow state marked final, Sitecore will create a new Version of that Item for the user. In the scenarios listed above, the original versions will never progress to a “finalized” state from the user’s perspective, and will remain to clutter the workbox indefinitely.

Recommendation: One workflow state marked final at the end of the workflow process, to indicate that an Item version has progressed through review and is approved for publication.

Know how to assign Workflow to a Template’s Standard Values

Workflow should always be assigned to a Standard Values Item using the Review tab, as shown below.

Avoid accessing the Standard Fields to set Workflow, as it’s a common source of developer confusion. If Workflow is set using the Ribbon, this is what the Standard Fields should look like:

Note that the Workflow and State fields are blank.  This is correct for a Standard Values item, as these fields reflect the Workflow and State for a particular instance of an Item type. If you’re looking for a hint, look for Standard Values items in the Workbox, where they normally would not appear. Chances are, someone filled the Workflow and State fields accidentally. Clear them to return your installation to normal.

Shunt between Workflow States, not Workflows

In the image above, note that the Workflow field is “shared”. This indicates that all Versions in all Languages of a given Item will use the value of this field. If you programmatically alter the value of this field, the effect is universal. This is a good hint that architecturally, Sitecore was not designed to support moving Items between workflows. The solution? Consolidate all the various workflow states across all disparate workflows and use Workflow Commands to select the appropriate path between Workflow States. In addition to being more Sitecore-compliant, this solution has the benefit of being code-free.

Separate Security Concerns to Reduce your Workflow Complexity

While Sitecore Security is a post all its own, it merits consideration here. Sitecore uses three different security concerns to evaluate the authority of a user’s actions:

 Sitecore Security Concerns

When designing your security scheme, ensure that each of your security roles addresses one and only one of the concerns above. One should note that Sitecore does not follow this advice itself. The “Sitecore Client Authoring” role is shipped with a set of Workflow security settings that need to be cleared in order to establish the separation described above.

In theory, all users belong to three security roles, one for each of the concerns above. The first role specifies access to Sitecore features, the second the rights for Items in the content tree, and the third access to various Workflow states and Actions.

Three roles per user

Benefits of this security model:

  • Allows you to add access to Sitecore features without having to worry about a user’s Item security
  • Allows you to create fine-grained access to parts of the Content Tree without worrying about workflow permissions
  • Allows you to promote a user’s workflow rights without changing any other aspect of their security scheme.
  • In most cases, allows you to use a single workflow for the entire installation.

The last point is key. In order for a User to see an Item in the Workbox, they need “write” access to the Item as well as the language(s) of relevant versions. The user also needs “Workflow Write” access to the Workflow State of the relevant version(s). To move those versions to a new Workflow State, they need Workflow Command Execute rights on at least one Command for that Workflow State. Understanding this architectural detail allows workflow to be extremely flexible without creating multiple workflows. One simply creates security roles for a number of workflow personas (tyipcally this involves an editor and an approver role).  These workflow roles apply permissions only to objects in Sitecore/System/Workflow and therefore can be used by any person who has access to any part of the content tree. It is the content tree security that refines what the user “sees” in the Workbox.

Takeaways

We’ve covered a lot of ground on Workflow philosophy. Here’s the digest version:

  • Use workflow to control whether a Version of an Item is publishable
  • Set the default workflow in the Standard Values of your Data Templates using the Ribbon, not the Standard Fields
  • Create a single Workflow for your project and use Workflow States to manage content lifecycles
  • Separate Workflow security from Item security in your Role definitions

Follow these simple steps to simplify your life when it comes to Sitecore administration. Happy configuring!

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Clay Tablet Technologies founder and CEO Robinson Kelly goes where the business action is – so he’s constantly on the move at Internet industry events spreading the Clay Tablet word among potential customers and partners. He took a few minutes at Sitecore Dreamcore 2011 to discuss his company’s software, which connects Sitecore CMS with language service providers and platforms to streamline the language translation process for web marketers.

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Sitecore Sr. Vice President of Product Marketing Darren Guarnaccia, in a short interview at Dreamcore North America 2011, provides some color and context around Sitecore’s forthcoming marketing-centric additions to its web content management software, the Customer Engagement Platform.

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Fred Harding of Coveo, an enterprise search platform provider, took time out at Dreamcore 2011 to discuss his company’s technology and its integration with the Sitecore web content management system.

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Dreamcore 2011 ends

Turn out the lights: A worker in the Park Plaza Hotel ballroom cleans up in the waning minutes of Dreamcore 2011

Sitecore Dreamcore North America 2.0 ended this afternoon with big product development promises, hallway chatter about new marketing capabilities, and a mad dash for the taxi stand for folks with early flights out of Logan.

In his closing comments, Sitecore CEO Michael Siefert painted a big vision of innovation for the coming year especially in advances that will make marketers smarter and more effective with automation, customer intelligence, engagement measurements and  more.

The caveat here is: It’s not all built yet, so the company’s unveiling of the CEP (Customer Experience Platform) with lofty, compelling promises puts the pressure on the company to deliver tangible results. (See a product preview here.)

Key takeaways from this year’s conference:

  • Sitecore is intent on building an integrated platform, not a patchwork quilt of acquired technologies, to support its expanding vision for web and marketing engagement. We’ll be intently watching and testing Sitecore in our own R&D environments to gauge how enterprise-ready the new additions are vs. best-of-breed marketing automation and other tools. Stay tuned.
  • The company is decidedly moving (both in product and in positioning) from web content management to a customer experience platform; while other CMS vendors have tried to make similar shifts, Sitecore appears to be going all-in with this new approach. They made big promises this week; now they just need to deliver.
  • Sitecore is shifting along with the web as it moves from a single channel to many channels for content distribution, marketing and customer engagement
  • Expect to see Sitecore address “ease of use” especially for marketers with new interfaces in upcoming releases (screenshots of  some clean, new interfaces destined for upcoming releases elicited positive gasps in Tuesday’s Wednesday’s final session)
  • Sitecore’s drive to be a leader in cloud environments is real, as it works closely (but not exclusively) with Microsoft Azure
  • Internal funding for engineering innovation is not slowing down; Siefert claims half of Sitecore’s staff and “every maintenance dollar” collected goes to R&D and innovation.

The overall ambition is great. Some customers and partners I spoke with left a little confused about what components/capabilities will be available, and when, and how it will impact pricing, licensing, and existing installs. (Official release of CEP comes June 8 at Dreamcore London.) More than one person left scratching their heads at the alphabet soup of new acronyms.  

The real proof, of course, will be a year from now, when we all can look back and see how much of the roadmap reaches the market – and how the earliest adopters are faring.

We’d love to hear what you took away from the conference by commenting on our blog.

In the next few days and weeks, we’ll be publishing more feedback and thoughts from the nine ISITE Design folks who attended Dreamcore, so we hope you subscribe and stick around. And if you haven’t read or heard enough CMS information, head over to our other CMS blog, the CMS Myth.

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GoTfD2011 (Glossary of Terms for Dreamcore 2011)

by daponovich on April 20, 2011

The following post was submitted by ISITE Design colleague, Sheryl Hampton, as a public service to the Dreamcore audience.

OK, Sitecore is a great CMS, for sure, and the folks there are super smart.  And face it, when you’re referring to a lengthy product name or phrase, day after day, of course you start abbreviating it. However, the acronyms were a bit much this year – I am not kidding when I say I’ve seen in print and heard each one of these multiple times in the past 2 days. Well, not to worry; I’ve created the glossary of terms below for communication from Sitecore regarding their upcoming products.

OK, let’s start with the easy ones we all know…

CMS (Content Management System)
WCM (Web Content Management system)
WMS (Web content Management System)
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
OMS (Online Marketing Suite) 

Now here are some new ones, and Sitecore’s labeling, from the event…

CEP (Customer Engagement Platform)
ECM (Email Campaign Manager)
DMS (Digital Marketing System) 

Of course, it all comes down to math…

CEP = CMS + DMS

And, from what I can tell..

DMS = EA + EA + PEE (stop laughing)

EA (Engagement Analytics)
EA (Engagement Automation)
PEE (Personalization and Experience Editor) 

I think ECM is another name for EA (Engagement Automation), not to be confused with that tired old dog, Enterprise Content Management. And I’m not quite sure, but rumor has it that DMS is the new OMS.  Although I did hear OMS v2 referenced, and saw DMS v2 in print.   Yes, I am a little confused.  I’m sure they’ll have it all figured out and clear for us when they launch the new products.  That way we can easily tweet about it all and be understood!

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The major storyline from this week’s Dreamcore conference: Sitecore’s evolution from web content management to a broader customer engagement platform. Call it marketing and positioning, but the company is taking valid steps to broaden its capabilities as a web platform to go beyond core content management and provide marketers with tools for engagement, communications, intelligence and optimization.

CEO Michael Siefert painted the vision at the start of the conference by introducing the new platform (a souped-up, next-gen version of the original Online Marketing Suite which it replaces) and closed on the same message Tuesday: “We’re the fastest growting vendor in CMS and in digital marketing technology,” Siefert said in his closing talk.

The new marketing-centric platform which layers on top of Sitecore CMS isn’t officially released yet and is expected around June (an early version of the 6.5 releases is available) Sitecore is seeking to become nothing less than a single source provider for a suite of tools necessary to any web marketer. Customer engagement in their definition extends beyond managing the site to managing social media, customer intelligence, analytics and metrics to help make smarter marketing decisions, email marketing tools and more.  See the full news release here.

There’s a lot left to do, Sitecore admits. They’re looking a year ahead and plan to have built out a lot more competency in this area in coming releases — predictive analytics, marketing automation tools, etc. And while other marketing technology and CMS companies are adding tools via acquisition, Siefert sees Sitecore’s focus on building an integrated platform to be an advantage.  Half the company’s 200+ staff are said to be focused on R&D.

What’s coming in the next year:

  • Continued evolution of marketing features
  • Continued investment in CMS
  • Deeper community features
  • Pluggable cloud service services (Azure and other platforms)
  • Sitecore Engage

This last one — Sitecore Engage — is a nod to the marketers Sitecore is trying to bring along. Engage will be a Sitecore portal designed and populated with content, video, articles, blogs and advice (including phone-based consulting from Sitecore) specifically for marketers, campaign managers, line of business leaders and others who don’t muck with the code so much as run campaigns and generate value through the digital channel. No release date announced, but it’s coming, we’re told.

ISITE will be following along to see what and how much they can pull off in the coming year.

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OMS2 Analytics – Forging Engagement with Simple Metrics

by Katie Del Angel on April 20, 2011

Simple, elegant metrics beat Einstein-esque complexity

Ever try to find something at a Best Buy on a Saturday, with dozens of other people vying for the nearest salesperson’s attention, only to be swiftly pointed off to a vague aisle yards away? After searching in vain for 15 minutes, frustration, confusion, and disinterest surely ensue.

Now imagine an instance where, instead of sending you off on your way, the salesperson of your favorite shop actually helps you find what you need – delivering you the perfect shirt for your jacket, and even showing you a great tie to boot.

What’s the difference between store 1 and store 2? For starters, you leave store 2 with what you were looking for. But more importantly, store 2 engaged you by building communication, trust, and commitment. Instead of pushing faceless traffic, store 2 created real value for you in the experience.

This high traffic (quantity) versus high value (quality) scenario could apply to any 2 websites. Ron Person explained the considerations in using OMS2 to create a more engaging website by leveraging cross-channel marketing and multipliers.

It used to be for a marketing manager, 3 or 4 channels of marketing in separate silos, with a few key metrics. Now there’s over a dozen channels – different variations, different metrics.

Rather than Einstein’s complex equation for web analytics, we need something simple and elegant to leverage these metrics. We need a model for engagement value, measured by communication, trust, and commitment. Through understanding the actions of users involving these aspects we can find our engagement value, Ron says. That’s where OMS2 comes in.

Engagement value accumulates at transaction points, where we can assign a point value to each point (Ron used 25,50&100, but you use any number to assign your own value to the page).

Looking at the dashboard running on OMS2, we can see where we can tweak, noting traffic types and value across multiple channels. For example, an email campaign creates 8% of value, yet is the most impactful channel. This tells us which areas we need to pump more into and expand on, and which may not be as engaging or impactful. We can track by individual visitor – engagement and activity score on the individual level or the business level.

The dashboard intelligence is so straightforward “even a marketer can do it”. Thanks Ron :)

Once we have the engagement value, we can determine relevance – marketing effectiveness, relevance to user interests, value per visitor – and page potential.

Bottom line is, relevance > number of visitors. Instead of high traffic alone, focus on high traffic that’s highly engaged.

The nitty gritty:

Why is OMS2 better?

Although Google Analytics also allows similar tracking now – to prescribe value per page – the difference is the coding and the tracking. You can’t track individuals, you just get the bigger impression, but you should know where your users’ interests lie. OMS2 is easy to track on the business level or the individual level.

Dynamics integration?

The dashboard pulls data from the DMS, after first queries – your one time hit is cached, instead of needing to input a bunch of queries.

Cost per campaign factored in?

Though it’s not pulled in, you can use a program called Tableau for that. Costs change too constantly.

What questions do you still have about OMS2?

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